Germany
Zeppelin-Werke Staaken GmbH
Although firms like Siemens-Schuckert and Luftverkehrsgesellschaft (LVG) had made tremendous inroads into the development of long-range bombers during the First World War, the most successful company by far was Zeppelin-Werke Staaken. It was the Staaken R-planes that bombed Britain during the hostilities and they were the only large bombers to have carried out attacks on the Western Front. The birth…
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The Battle of Narva, 1944 Part II
August 19, 1944, Narva-Riga, note the beginning of the disengagement from the Narva Riverlines, the small sectors now covered by Nordland and Nederland owing to their weakness. To Narva The 3rd SS Panzer Corps had been in the thick of battle since the opening of the offensive. Its 9th and…
The Battle of Narva, 1944 Part III
SS Nordland at the battle of Narva Another Try During the first week of March, the German troops at Narva could sense something was coming. Soviet units were on the move, and the roar of tank engines could be heard from beyond the enemy lines. In the sky, the Red…
The Battle of Narva, 1944 Part IV
Operation Bagration Meanwhile in Moscow, STAVKA was working on another operation, code named “Bagration, ” that promised to break open the eastern front once and for all. With the attack in the north stalled, the Soviet strategists planned to shift the bulk of their forces south and use them to…
War of the Austrian Succession, 1740–1748
George II at the Battle of Dettingen. George II, who was born in 1683, was king of Britain from 1727 to 1760 as a member of the Hanoverian line. He was brought up to a military life and military affairs were his major interest. He regulated his day with the…
Barbarossa – German Arrogance
On 22 June 1941, at 0330 hours, mechanised Wehrmacht divisions, supported by Luftwaffe fighter-bombers, poured across the Niemen River into Russia. The date had been carefully chosen for its historical significance. Exactly 129 years before, on 22 June 1812, an apparently invincible Napoleon Bonaparte had also crossed the Niemen to…
Waffen-SS 1944-45
 But what the regime increasingly required was a military force that fought out of fanatical National Socialist commitment. This was in fact available, in the shape of the Military SS (Waffen-SS). Its history went back to the early days of the Third Reich, when Hitler had formed an armed…